10 NOTABLE 19th-CENTURY WYOMINGITES
1 Washakie: Chief of the Eastern Shoshone tribe, Washakie adeptly steered his people through a century of change during which mountain men, missionaries, American soldiers and emigrants on the overland trails moved across and onto their lands. In 1868 he negotiated a treaty that kept the Eastern Shoshones on their home ground in what that year became Wyoming Territory.
2 Jim Bridger: Venturing west with William Henry Ashley’s “Hundred” fur trappers in the early 1820s, Bridger trapped, traded and opened a post to serve travelers on the overland trails. He is arguably the best-known mountain man of the era with Wyoming ties.
3 Thomas Fitzpatrick: Mountain man and treaty negotiator “Broken Hand” Fitzpatrick was a key figure in the history of the territory and relations between its Anglo and Indian residents.
4 Red Cloud: The Oglala Lakota chief led Indian resistance along the Bozeman Trail and won his war against the frontier military, forcing closure of forts and abandonment of the trail.
5 Pierre-Jean The Belgian-born Jesuit priest led the first Catholic Mass in Wyoming, given on a hilltop overlooking the Green River Valley (near present-day Daniel) in 1840.
